OF OUTRAGEOUS POLITICS rear their ugly heads, Toni complains that she’s sick and tired of politics. Although I do say things like, “The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance” or “You May Not Be Interested In Politics But Politics Is Interested In You”, I also sympathize. Inherent in the right to Liberty is the right to be Left The Hell Alone. I believe firmly that the right to say, “Hell NO” to importunate government busybodies should be vigorously defended by all lovers of liberty, and that doing so with extreme prejudice should be considered dispositive.

Woon’t that result in anarchy?

Might, Dolly. It very well might. But consider this: the state does not monitor our every move — yet. And, yet, we manage to go about our daily business not infringing upon the rights of others (for the most part) or doing one another harm (for the most part), and no number government nosy-parkers could stop us if we decided not to. So riddle me this, Baby Doll: how does the existence or operation of government enhance this situation?

‘Ll… It doesn’t!

Of course.

And… so… what?

Well, the proximate cause of this rant is the approach of the so-called Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which proposes we give the Federal government the power to shut down individual Internet domains by technical means (i.e., messing with the infrastructure of the Internet). Without providing the victims of this shutdown any benefit of due process.

The move is prompted by large, corporate interests — holders of pools of intellectual property (it should be noted, the creation of individuals) — who are by en large Democrat political supporters and campaign donors.

Intellectual Property law is a thorny thicket and a sticky wicket and all that, and it’s hard to form a clear set of opinions founded on pure principle, so beset is the field by lawyers. And I must disclose that I personally have a dog in this fight, being a creator of intellectual property, in no matter how small a way. But one thing I have been able to noodle out and that is that I believe that copyright should inhere to the actual creator(s). That the only reason a corporation should hold IP rights is when it is specifically formed to protect the rights of the people who actually created the work. The idea that corporations can buy and sell rights in works that they had no part in creating strikes me as anathema.

And, yes, I realize this is a problem for software and motion pictures, to name but two. Actual cases need to be worked out. But I think the principle is sound.

But what bugs and fatigues me is that these damned statist outrages just keep fucking coming. You knock one down and a thousand more crop up to take its place. It’s never-ending. They’re all against the rules. But the statist creeps form a very exclusive club, and it appears they coopt nearly any and every one who has the temerity to mount assaults on them. And they move to protect one another, even when they shouldn’t.

Consider this. The Constitution — and therefore the legal framework of the United States — derives its just powers from the governed. Says so right here: We the People, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So just where the hell do judges get off ruling that members of We the People do not have standing when statist fucks in Washington waive our rights with out so much as a willy. Or even a nilly. Need to show you’ve been harmed? How does having my liberty diminished — unlawfully, I might add — NOT harm me? Can there be no relief?

And I can’t help looking for a silver bullet. Like: ought it be lawful to assassinate tyrannical public officials? You’d have to stand trial, in jeopardy for your life, yes, of course. But should “He needed killing, Judge,” be considered an affirmative defense? (With a very high bar, of course.)

But somehow this shit’s gotta stop. Or we face a far worse whirlwind behind it.

DEPARTMENT… Not only were the guns in the Gunwalker scandal — Operation Fast and Furious — allowed to be bought by straw purchasers with a wink and a nod to the FFLs from the BATFE-I-E-I-O, but now we learn, the straw purchasers were undercover agents of the DEA and the FBI!

So an agency that shouldn’t exist in the first place decides to target — as criminal action — commerce that is or ought to be inviolate under the Constitution. Not only that, but they attract the interest of organized crime task forces of sister Federal agencies. And nobody figured it out for two years?!

Tell me again why We the People don’t have all of these miscreants in chains? Waiting their turns at the gallows?

A.K.A. BENJAMIN Buttinface. This picture doesn’t show it — in fact none of the pictures I’ve been able to get of Earnie so far do — but he looks like a little old man, with a head two sizes too large, a spindly neck. He looks just like Brad Pitt in full “The Curious Case of…” makeup. That, plus his habit of sticking his butt in your face, and his proclivity for flatulence, we almost find his nickname inevitable.

He likes to get up in the middle of your chest, with his back tucked under your chin — never sit with your back to the door; always be sure you can see threats coming; do you think a kitten can be that situation aware? — and purr like a diesel 4-cylinder.

Earnie was the one of the three most recent additions to the herd here at Casa d’Alger who was going to go to Number One Daughter’s household. Until, that is, I got attached to him and expressed a willingness to sell Chester (a.k.a. Chutney, and there’s a story to that, too) down the river in Earnie’s favor. And then NOD found an abandoned kitten in the middle of the road and all of a sudden we were “stuck” with kittens number eight, nine, and ten.

AT CLAIRE BERLINSKI’S about airport security and the manifestly fucked-up street theater that is the TSA.

Me, I think the core problem is the same mistake that government makes over and over again — they are searching for contraband rather than looking at people.

Forget about rights, but focus on function for a moment.

Why does the government need to worry about drugs or guns? Does the presence or absence of either have any effect on the function of government or public safety? No. It is only the uses to which people put these things that matter. When a person is intoxicated and incapacitated thereby, he may do harm to his fellows. A person who holds a gun without the proper moral framework informing his actions may do harm to his fellows.

So, it is seen as proper for government, when such harm does eventuate, to sanction that behavior which causes the harm. (I argue that, unless and until the harm occurs, the government has no business meddling in matters, but many people argue that threat should be sufficient reason for the state to attempt to restrain threatening behavior. Me, I see that as a fool’s errand, but whatever.

But the actual physical object is irrelevant. It’s the human behavior that matters.

But governments, time and again, waste time, money, and energy chasing the elusive notion that, by banning contraband, it can control people’s behavior.

Here’s another thing: does the government have the need to know who you are? I argue not. All agents of the state need to know is that you are not a threat to either your fellows or to the agents of the state — although, far too much is made of the latter condition. It appears we have a lot of pussies in government service if dissing a cop can get you tasered or shot.

So, why check ID’s at the airport? All they need to know is that you are trustworthy — that you are NOT going to blow up the airplane. How does checking your driver’s license serve that? Of course, it doesn’t.

One of the commenters at Ricochet came close to the correct notion when he said we should intensely profile and interrogate everybody once, and then let those who pass slide through a less-intrusinve security check in the future. It seems to me that there is a wonderful business opportunity, here, if a way can be figured to check, certify, and attest to the trustworthiness of individuals, and that said certificates be made counterfeit resistant and bear secure biometrics as a check. The whole system could even be anonymous, thus getting around the 4th Amendment problems.

And, I should point out, this solution was offered in the hours after the 9/11 atrocities, while the smoke still billowed from lower Manhattan. To my mind, this demonstrates more clearly than anything else could that the intention of the tribunes of the people in Washington in creating the whole DHS edifice was not to enhance national security, but to bind tens of thousands more unionized government workers to the ruling class. As I said at the time.

Nothing that has occurred in the intervening decade has persuaded me otherwise.

My earliest memory of the Fourth comes from a parade in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, sometime in the late ’50s. I’d have to say ’58 or ’59 [which would make me 4 or 5 years old]. I remember standing on the verge between the sidewalk and the main street of town, and being told, “Here comes the fife and drum corps.” I didn’t know from a fife, but the drums set up a pounding rhythm in my chest that hasn’t stopped since.

Of course, that early memory and influence would mean nothing without later reinforcement. Or… the meaning would be terribly shallow. But America and Americans have — time and time again — reinforced that numinous feeling of overwhelming pride and glory, filled that vessel those drums made of my heart over and over again.

It’s no wonder to me that myriad millions come from all over the globe to become Americans. Or, better said, to reaffirm the American being they felt all those miles away.

And I won’t sully the spirit of the day by naming what it is that does make me wonder.

This was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction to emotions Sarah expressed in the main post. But, once it was done, it seemed like it had more substance than I might have gotten from deeper consideration. In fact, I have been trying to write an abstruse disquisition on the myriad shadings of the words Independence, Liberty, and Freedom, without meeting much success. Just shows to go ya; dive in headfirst; you’ll get farther, faster, than dipping your toe in tentatively.

THE WRECKERS on the Left, in the person of Charles “Chuck-you” Schumer (D-NY), are trying to sell the notion that a minority party, whose president was a lame duck for the last quarter of his term, and whose membership includes a good many left-leaning sympathizers, is responsible for the economic downturn that began — almost if by magic — at the exact instant that his (Schumer’s) extremist left-wing party took power.

I mean, parking in the pedestrian lane in a crowded and busy Kroger parking lot on a holiday-weekend Saturday takes a particularly bile-acid kind of gall. Why is it that the cars you see there are almost always those that price north of mid-five-figures MSRP? Or is there a filter in the windshieldglass that blocks out the glow-in-the-dark yellow hatching and the large-print sign that reads NO PARKING right there on the pavement? Or are these people just assholes?

I wish I’d thought to write down the license plate number. Maybe public shaming might come back into vogue.

THE MAN HAS an incredibly valid point. They talk all the time about how many people are killed by firearms every year. How many of those are killed by government employees? Half? More? Or don’t they count them?

I think it’s time to take guns out of the hands of the government. They have proved to be far too irresponsible too and should not be allowed to handle them. Time to return guns to the people, who are more responsible and know better how to use them.

We just need some common sense gun regulations for them. Any government employee that is allowed to possess a firearm while on the job should be licensed with strict training requirements. All government guns should be registered. All ammunition use should be documented. All of these records must be put online and be publically available.

Joe tags it as sarcasm, but, me, I’m not so sure. It sounds entirely reasonable to me. Based on what available evidence there is, the general shooting public is far better qualified to safely keep, bear, and use firearms than any agent of the state.

YOU KNOW, THE MORE I hear Obama drawing four class warfare cards to an inside straight, the more pissed off I get. He rants about how the Republicans can’t even get off their duffs to help the Democrats (read: give them cover) to pass such an utterly unserious proposal as raising a tax on corporate jets (Yeah, that’s brilliant; make executive time even MORE expensive. Idiot!) that’ll bring in a whole whopping — what did they say the number was? — three hundred million over ten years? Or was it three billion? In either case, measured against a thirteen-figure ANNUAL budget deficit, the notion is risible. Despicable, even.

And where the fuck does he get off? I know it’s kind of cliche these days to point out that he has an obligation — having sworn an oath — to honor, obey, uphold, and defend the Constitution, which requires that all citizens be treated equally, but … day-um! How much more of this shit do we have to put up with?

* You can pronounce this Obama lies or Obamilies (rhymes with homilies) or Obamolies (rhymes with anomolies). ANYway…

OF POPULAR LORE is the despicable contention that it’s better to beg foregiveness than to ask permission. It’s wrong on so many levels, and corrosive to the moral fiber of the nation. Hell: the world.

My rejoinder is: don’t apologize, don’t do it in the first place. And, no, on principle, foregiveness is not to be forthcoming from me. If Vengeance is Mine (His), according to the Lord, then I’d say foregiveness is reserved to Him as well.

But a gaffe is sometimes defined as unintentionally speaking an embarrassing truth.

So, when Mark Halperin was caught saying that Obama had behaved as a bit of a dick the other day, (And so what else is new?), and then apologized…

As I’ve said here before, I’ve never said anything online (that I can recall) that I’m not willing to own, although sometimes people have prevailed upon me to paper over statements for the sake of others. And I’d be more than willing to say out loud, in front of God and everybody, that Obama is a dick. An arrogant prick. A veritable phallus of fallacy. An obelisk of obfuscation. A gnomon of nastiness.

And I refuse to apologize on the grounds that I speak nothing but the truth.

TO GO PISS UP A ROPE and their clean air regulations ignored. And, when they send inspectors and whomever to enforce their unconstitutional regulatory takings and try to close coal-fired electrical generating plants on which the public relies for electric power, the inspectors should be shot as saboteurs.

And, because of the terminal stupidity represented OH so ably by la Boxer and her ilk, and the EPA and the concept that brought it into existence in the first place, I must hereby disclaim about the “should be shot” part, otherwise some idiot — unacquainted with the concept of hyperbole — will think I literally meant that people should take shots at Federal agents. No way. That’s too freaking dangerous. Those guys kill citizens without even batting an eyelash. Ever hear of Ruby Ridge? Waco? You take them on, you do it at your own risk. Leave me out of it.

ON PRINCIPLE as they restrict private property rights for the vaguest notion of the Greater Good. And, as we know, the — scorn quotes — “Greater Good” always ALWAYS results also in the greater ill, the greatest damage done to individual liberty.

Zoning ordinances are at the very least prior restraint and are arguably out-and-out violations of the Ninth Amendment, as the People should be presumed to reserve the right to Liberty. Seems to me the properly-couched argument would — or should — be a slam-dunk in court, and that the inspectors in this case should be prosecuted under 18USC242.

THANK YOU FOR contacting me to express your views on federal spending and the debt ceiling. It is good to hear from you.

As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I am particularly concerned the enormous growth in the deficit and debt. These are the most serious problems facing this and future generations. This historic level of debt creates an environment of uncertainty in the economy that hurts investment and risk taking. The out of control federal spending must be stopped so this enormous burden is not passed on. If we continue to live beyond our means today, we will mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren- lowering their standard of living.

America’s staggering debt and deficit are directly linked to our ability to move the economy and create jobs. Without a serious commitment on our short and long term spending, we cannot create a pro-growth environment that’s necessary for a strong economy. And without stronger economic growth, we cannot hope to emerge from the dangerous overlay of debt. We must both restrain spending and grow the economy to regain footing.

In light of our deep fiscal problems and the current economic challenges facing all Americans, I believe every area of government must be examined for savings. As American families have tightened their belts over the past couple of years and businesses have had to do more with less, the federal government has taken the opposite path, spending more, growing bigger, and becoming more involved in our economy and our lives. This year’s $1.6 trillion deficit and $14 trillion debt are at record levels. Getting our deficit and debt under control is the single most important step we can take to get our economy going and create the jobs we need so badly.

Raising the debt ceiling in order to continue on the path of unsustainable spending would be irresponsible. Any debt limit increase must be accompanied by credible and meaningful debt reduction. Our current fiscal path is likely to plunge the United States in a debt crisis that will erode our children’s futures and for the first time in our history, leave the next generation of Americans worse off than this one.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write. I am honored to represent you and the great state of Ohio in the United States Senate. For more information, please visit my website at www.portman.senate.gov, where you may also sign up for my newsletter. Please keep in touch.

IN ALL SITUATIONS not involving emergency vehicles, to which all drivers must yield when such vehicles are underway and displaying flashing signal lights, the overtaken vehicle has the right of way, and the overtaking vehicle must yield, or slow, unless passing is permitted and may be safely undertaken, in which case, the overtaking vehicle may pass.

Otherwise, you gotta slow down behind the slowpoke. Sucks to be you. You do not have a constitutional right to go faster than everybody else. The speed limit is a maximum, not a baseline. And getting right up in somebody’s tailpipe to get them to speed up is dangerous and therefore inappropriate and unlawful — not to mention stupid — and if you get a ticket for following too close, you deserve it. Asshole.

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